Lawn size limits left hanging dry

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/FILE
Colorado lawmakers Friday backed off a plan to limit the size of lawns on new developments.

By KRISTEN WYATT
the Associated Press

Published: February 21, 2014;Last modified: February 21, 2014 11:28PM

DENVER — Colorado lawmakers on Friday backed off a plan to conserve water by limiting the size of lawns in new developments, avoiding a clash between developers and environmentalists as the state tries to deal with limited water and a booming population.

Sen. Ellen Roberts, a Durango Republican, argued her case Friday before a Dust-Bowl-era photo of Southeastern Colorado and charts showing the state’s population. The Dust Bowl, which hit Colorado, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle in the early 1930s, was caused by improper farming practices and forced thousands from their homes.

Roberts argued that the lawn limits would help acclimate newcomers and force them to discover drought-tolerant plants better suited to Colorado’s semi-arid climate.

“It’s not the same thing as growing a lawn in Oregon or Pennsylvania,” she said.

But Roberts ran into opposition from her own party. Other Republicans said the lawn limit idea was too heavy-handed on local governments, which control zoning and local land use. And some argued the bill improperly targeted residential water use but not agricultural water use.

Roberts was pushing a proposal that would have started a new requirement for developments built after 2016 to limit the lawn area of its lots to 15 percent in cases where the development’s water supply has been diverted from agricultural irrigation purposes to municipal or domestic use. The limit wouldn’t have applied to new developments using “raw water” irrigation, such as rainwater or snowmelt.